


Impressions in the Snow, and Other Times We Spend Together

by umaspirateship



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Holidays, Multi, Post-Canon, Snow, brief mentions of their parents SUCKING, descendantsgiftexchange, descendantssecretsanta, sometimes i dont agree with that (head?)canon but today im vibing, these hooligans LOVE EACH OTHER okay, they've never seen snow before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28380831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umaspirateship/pseuds/umaspirateship
Summary: For DaggeryUma, Gil, and Harry have just spent their first holiday season in Auradon, and find themselves back onboard the Lost Revenge, thinking about snow and Auradon and how things change. Harry seems particularly melancholic, and Uma and Gil do their best to figure out why.A story about memories, home, and being with people you love.
Relationships: Gil/Harry Hook/Uma
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	Impressions in the Snow, and Other Times We Spend Together

Uma learns fast their first winter in Auradon that if you step outside with wet hair, it will freeze.

She learns that when the wind blows over the hills outside the castle the snow looks almost like waves drifting gently towards some faraway shore.

It doesn’t make a sound, at night, like the rain does. It comes in quiet and slow, or quiet and fast, and if she looks straight up she can see it falling, from nowhere it seems, and it makes her dizzy. Sometimes she doesn’t see it fall, only feels the impressions on her skin as it melts too fast to see the pattern. It could be rain, if not for the fluttering white specks she can see in the streetlights if she stands still and watches.

When she walks to eat lunch with Harry and Gil in their favorite all-day-breakfast restaurant, _Infinite Waffle_ , the snow crunches under her feet and leaves an impression of her boots in the snow behind her. This, at least, she is familiar with. The dirty sand beaches of the Isle do the same, where it isn’t just a rocky cliff cutting off into ocean, and so does the mud whenever it rains, which it does frequently.

The weirdest thing about snow is leaving it, heading back across the bridge to the Isle and their ship, where everything is the same, where the weather is still dreary and wet and _home_ , where she can watch the snow from a distance like she did every winter for the past eighteen years of her life. Well. She hasn’t been watching from _her_ _ship_ for that long. Before that she and Harry would stand on the docks together, looking at the glitter of the snow in the distance, the way the sun would glint off of it at the right angles, wondering what it was like. And long before then, before Gil left, tiny Uma and Harry and Gil would make fake snowmen out of the mud and pretend their mudballs were snowballs. At least, they thought they were fake snowmen. Gil’s dad was the only one who’d really known a whole ton about _snow_ , and he wasn’t super. Communicative. So they made do with what information they had.

A lot of stuff had happened since then, to say the least.

“What do you like better, Captain, the rain or the snow?” asked Gil when they’d made it back onboard the ship and back in their room after all the Christmas festivities were wrapped up and complete. It had been a white Christmas. Their first in Auradon. Figures. “It’s probably the snow, right? Your favorite, I mean. I mean, it’s perfect for mischief. And when you step on it it makes a really cool noise, plus you get to wear your huge coat and not even get too hot. Also, I really like the fun pompoms on winter hats. I mean, your hat mostly keeps the snow out of your hair, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t really reach your ears, and I don’t know about you but _my_ ears get super cold whenever we go to Auradon in the winter.”

“My ears also get cold in the winter,” said Uma, when she could get a word in. “And I don’t know, really. Today was… fun, I guess. It’s nice actually getting to play in real snow, instead of make-believe.”

They’d been able to make a _real_ snowman after they’d finished opening presents with their new Auradonian… friends.

“Hm.” Harry tilted his head and turned in his chair so he was facing Uma directly. He’d been staring into the fire in their room since they’d made it back. He had been trying very hard to make himself seem suave and indifferent, his limbs tossed haphazardly in the tattered off-red armchair. Well. He _always_ sat in chairs as incorrectly as possible, that was normal. But usually, he was leaning off the chair like at any moment he would burst forth into a duel, or jokingly steal Uma’s hat off her head, or plant a kiss on their cheeks when he thought they had done something particularly endearing. That was what made _this_ haphazard sitting so odd.

“Cheshire cat got your tongue?” Uma asked, trying to send off equally casual and uncaring vibes that matched his.

“Yeah, Harry, which do you like better?” Gil asked, giving off sincere and excited vibes and missing the mood entirely. “I loved the snow today, but remember when we were kids, and we’d sneak out right after dawn when everyone was still asleep, and jump in all the best puddles before anyone else could? And I was still so small Shri-“ Uma sent a warning glare –“Uma and I’d have to jump in them together to make a big enough splash?”

“Yes, treasure, I remember,” said Harry, letting a small smile slip onto his face.

“You know, you didn’t answer his question.”

“Ah, I don’t know either,” the smile fell off his face and he shut down, trying to not let out any emotion. “And, anyway, I don’t really get why you-“

Even Gil had caught onto his mood now, and he’d decided to respond by jumping off the table he’d been sitting on and interrupting Harry mid-sentence.

“Harry, you can’t be grouchy on a holiday,” Gil stalked forward and tugged Harry out of the chair, catching him and pulling him up when his legs inevitably got tangled. “That’s our deal.”

“Yeah, when we were kids,” Harry complained, then froze and said quickly “-I’m not being grouchy.”

“Fine, solemn, quiet, irritable, morose,” said Gil. He’d been taking advantage of Ben’s parents’ seemingly infinite library when Ben had finally convinced his mother to let him in.

“Grouchy,” said Uma, standing up too and sliding her arms around their waists. She let her head rest on Harry’s shoulder.

“Grouchy,” sighed Harry, leaning so his head was resting on hers.

They stood there, for a moment, in silence.

“It’s different,” he said, drawing a long breath. “Being there.”

“Hm,” she hummed encouragingly.

He turned his head deeper into her hair and hid his face. “It’s… wet.”

Startled, Uma let out a little laugh. “Wet?”

“I don’t know, I thought it would feel like, like, magic, or something. I mean, when we were kids. Don’t you remember? Sitting there, on the dock?”

“Staring out across the barrier,” she hummed, “At the snow. I remember.”

“It was just another thing they had, that we didn’t. The snow… glittered. Like gold, or magic, or, I don’t know.” He chuckled weakly. “But I guess it’s just… wet. Not magic, or anything. It’s just water, that’s like… cold!”

“Yeah, I mean. It is that.”

“I keep having to bring a towel if I want to visit Auradon when it’s raining here, so I can towel off on the bridge since otherwise, my clothes just… freeze! Cause it’s like, just really cold _water_ that you can throw at people!”

“You’re having a breakdown because snow… is water.”

“It’s wet!”

“Water is wet,” said Gil, nodding.

“ARGH!” Harry exclaimed, dragging a hand over his face and slightly extracting himself from Uma and Gil. “It’s just. These Auradon people built up snow like it was something amazing, spectacular. Like we were _deprived_ for not seeing it as children. Like it was just one more reason why Auradon is better than here. Than home. This ship, that is. A wasp’s nest would be a better home than... where I grew up.”

“Or inside of an active volcano,” said Gil, helpfully.

“Yeah. That. But I’m _proud_ of this ship,” he nudged Uma and she looked up at him. “I’m proud of _you._ I’m proud of what we did, and I love the home we’ve made together.”

“I love it too,” Uma said softly, hugging him with the arm that was still wrapped around his waist.

“Anyway-“ he snapped, “I’ve just been… thinking. About the snow, and the rain, and how snow is just… _wet._ And everything in the snow just reminds me of here, of home. Of hiding under blankets when the stormy winds are slipping through the broken boards of the ship. Of the way the rain sounds and _feels_ , and, I don’t know, has been the one thing on this cursed island that feels… alive. And I remember you two, and, and all the _memories_ we have here together in the rain. And all the special things about the snow are just… boring, in comparison. And I’m _ANGRY_ that the stupid AKs and stupid Ben think their whole ~snow~ thing is so superior! Well, it’s not! It’s just wet!”

“Water _is_ wet,” said Gil, again.

“Water IS wet, Gil,” said Harry, triumphantly. “And our wet-stuff, our storms, are just as cool and epic and fun and, and, worthwhile as any white Christmas! Snow, is just, just another thing! It’s not even magic!”

“Hm,” Uma said into the silence after his speech. “You know, Harry, enjoying snow, enjoying these new memories at Auradon, it doesn’t mean we’re leaving the rain behind. We have our memories here, on this ship, but we also still live here and are still making memories. Having new traditions, trying new things, it’s just another part of our lives now.”

“I just… I don’t want this to change,” he gestured to the room around them, “Auradon sometimes… sometimes it feels so much better than this place. I guess the snow just shocked me, because I felt like _finally_ it wasn’t perfect, it was just water, like here, and cold and worse and you have to shake off your jacket whenever you enter a shop. But you guys just kept talking like it was this thing that was so beautiful, and wonderful, and magnificent, and I thought if even _water_ is fancy and impressive and Auradon-perfect to you, why would you even want to stay here? With… with me. ‘Cause I do, want to stay, that is.”

“This is my ship, Harry,” said Uma.

“A ship that we’re fixing, Uma. It can, you know, sail places now.”

“I’m not sailing anywhere without my boys,” she said, kissing them both on the lips and grinning. “And besides, the Isle is warmer in the wintertime, anyway. We can stay wherever we’re happy, and travel when we get restless, and go explore new things by ourselves and come back here together when we’re done. This is our home, and that’ll always be most important to me, no matter what cool things Auradon has that we don’t.”

“Plus, we can just steal their cool stuff,” said Gil.

Harry and Uma looked at him and smiled.

“Sure, darling,” Harry sighed, “But if you steal any snow, you’re responsible for mopping it off the deck.”

They spent the rest of Christmas curled up in front of the fire as Gil read to them, looking at each other and at the fire and at the pages of the story. The Auradonian hills sparkled with snow outside the window, far away, forgotten in favor of the warmth of each others’ hands.

So long, they’d been longing for a place that wasn’t here, for someplace magical and beautiful and snowy, but now they could accept that they’d already found what they’d been longing for. Home.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed your gift(s)! I really loved diving into different emotions and thoughts for this fic, and had the chance to explore some of my own feelings about home/seeing snow for the first time. Snow is JUST WATER???? Whack. Intellectually, I know that snow is water. Emotionally, I did not know that snow, like water, is wet. What the hell.
> 
> \- abbey aka umaspirateship


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